Particular Cause & Effect

Cause and Effect claims is when understand that there is a result due to an action. Within the realm of cause and effect claims, there are different types of cause and effect claims. Examples of a few types of cause and effect claims are normal conditions, general cause and effect, and particular cause and effect. We are going to look at a particular cause and effect claim. It is, according to Epsteins' book of Critical Thinking, when "this happened once, then that happened once."(pg. 303) In general, it is when you have a specific action that causes a specific result.

For example - there was a situation when my brother and sisters were young, where they had gotten into an argument. This was when my brother was 5 and my sister was 7. My sister went up to me and said, "Khoa hit me, and it hurts!" There was a specific action that happened, with a specific result.

Chp. 13 Misleading Claims with Numbers - Apples & Oranges.

Aside from claims that uses emotions, reasoning, fallacies, and general claims, there are also forms of misleading claims dealing with numbers. When we look at advertisements or claims that we see within a statistical arena, those numbers that are used, is used to form a claim. One has to be cautious about claims that comes with numbers or graphs, because sometimes they are not accurate. Just because a claims comes with percentage or numbers of statistical observation, does not make the claim true or a matter of fact. One still has to be very careful in acknowledging these claims with numbers and be able to try to differentiate to see if it is misleading type of claim or not. Here are some types of misleading claims such as two times zero is still zero claim, percentage claims, graph claims, and claims that compare apples and oranges. Claims that compare percentiles or numbers in an apple and orange method, is very misleading. It is not comparing items/situations of similarity, but two entirely different ones.

For example, my mom would sometimes get very upset and disappointed with my brother's and sisters from time to time. When she does, she would say, "even a dog can understand that, i don't know why you can't!" Harsh, I know. But in this comparison, you can see that my mother is comparing apples and oranges, since a human and a dog are two different things.

Another example, and example with apple and oranges and misleading numbers - Sometimes when I am talking to my friends, regarding subjects in life and community, we sometimes run into this problem. There was one time, we had talked about drugs and the changes it cause within our community. My friend had said...."There are twice as many people using ecstasy as there are those who are smoking cigarettes."

Usefulness of Major Assignments

The major assignments that we had done, Critical Thinking in News and Politics ( the first major project) and Critical Evaluation of a Social Organization (the second major project), were very useful. It had helped many of us to better learn how to work within a group environment, especially a more web based one rather than face to face. This was in some sense a bit easier way to meet with groups, from my experience. This is especially true for me and my groups, since many of my group members were on different schedule, having a web base type of meeting sometimes does help, because we do not to have to prolong the meeting time which sometimes slows down the work productivity. Besides this, what else is useful from doing these two major assignments is the re-iteration information that we have just recently learned. The projects are based on subjects that we have learned about within our Critical Thinking book by Epstein, which makes to review and apply it to our project. This helps, in my opinion, remember the information regarding the subjects learned.

Reasoning By Analogy

Reasoning by analogy, according to Epstein in the Critical Thinking book, is when "a comparison becomes a reasoning by analogy when it is part of an argument; On one side of the comparison we draw a conclusion, so on the other side we should conclude the same." From what I understand, this basically means that there are two sides to a comparison and analogy, and from those two sides, you have to make a decision in which way you want to agree upon. Analogies, according to the book, can be a form of a non-argument,they are only forms of suggestions of how a certain situation, idea, law, rule, or logic should be. Either way, it is an important form of reasoning towards an argument, in which we use in everyday life to decide.

For example:
My brother and my dad always gets into arguments, and in on incident, they were debating about how my brother does not pay attention to what they have to tell him when is playing games. In response to that, my brother says: "Talking to me while I am playing games, is like talking to a tree. I won't be able to pay attention to what you had just told me."

This is a form of comparison of a reasoning analogy.

Appeal to Emotion

The idea of the appeal to emotion in chapter 10 of Epstein book, "Critical Thinking," is to use the human sense of emotion of fear, pity, vanity, spite, and feel-good of oneself to get the viewers to agree or accept what is being advertised or shown to them. Take for example the emotion appeal of fear, this is commonly use in commercials and adds that would want you to think twice about something or want you to stop doing or using something. A few examples are advertisement for anti-smoking, or anti-tobacco companies, and even anti-drunk drivers. Also, advertisements for things such as abortion, or unprotected sex also uses scare or fear tactics of the emotion of appeal to hopefully prevent their viewers from doing, what they would think, would be the wrong thing to do. Emotion appeal of fear is also a way that many politicians use to try to manipulate viewers for their own benefit. Take for example the campaign going on right now with Meg Whitman and John Brown for the seat of Governor of California. You can see that they try to use the fear tactic by bashing each others in their adds about all the bad things that each opponent have done in the past, and then asking you as the viewer if you would REALLY want someone like that governing your state.

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I had found an advertisement website for anti-smoking campaign. These advertisements use the emotional appeal of fear. The fear of what happens if one smokes or keeps smoking. It is an advertisement protesting against the nicotine and tobacco company and the people who use. It is portraying how harmful cigarettes are to, not only our own personal health, but also to those around us. This form of emotional appeal, in my perspective works very well, because it relates smoking to death. One of the fear that many have, or the fear of being ill or sick. It also a good argument, because there are statistical and scientific research over the years that helps prove to many that smoking does harm to your body and others around you. Although these advertisements are in picture form, but it is a very profound and strong of advertisement, seeing how dramatic each advertisement is and adamant about not smoking. An emotional appeal is an appeal, a form of claim or argument that touches on the premises of human sensibility and emotions. I believe these advertisement did a good job in pointing that out.

Interpersonal Dimensions of Group Evaluation

In a group environment, where team members agree upon or decide to meet regularly there will tend to be some disagreements or conflicts. The main goal or focus in these types of group environment, is to be able to recognize when the conflicts is no longer a conlfict of the project itself, but of personalities. Therefore, that is why groups like these needs to plan in their group a periodic performance evaluation. Assessing where they stand and their progress to their goals, the cohesiveness of the group, and the problems that the exists in the group and how to resolve it.

Group Evaluation is a tool that group members can use to do this. There are three different dimensions to this: Informational, Procedural, & Interpersonal.

Interpersonal dimension is the last of the three dimensions in the group evaluation. It is where the group focuses on the relationships of each individual team members that are there. Because in any event, if there is conflict within the group between team members, it will present to the group a sense of uncomfortableness. Which, in return will strain the group, leaving them unable to be productive towards their project.

Things to address that would help the group are:
1. Positive reinforcement - For example, in my previous group projects from previous semesters, we found that in order to make group members to feel confident and not left out; We would often praise each team members on the things that they do right. This gives them confidence - a form of positive reinforcement.
2. Solidarity - Example: From a previous group project, the team leader had planned out for us parts of the projects that we will do with each other, and others for individual work. This helps bring out each individuals creativity and sense of individual accomplishment.
3. Cooperativeness - Example: In my previous groups when we came together, we had first created a list of rules or values that all of us agreed upon. This is considered our group culture - this is what we use to remind ourselves our responsibility as a group and what is to be expected.
4. Respect Towards Others - Example: Before, we initiate that we are a group, we take time out to learn about each other, to find out how compatible we are. After, we agree upon being in the same group, we use our created group culture and rules to guide us in being respectful to each other.

Chapter 7 - Refuting an Argument

To refute an argument, is to counter it or prove it being false. There are three ways that an argument can be refuted: 1. Refuting directly, 2. Refuting indirectly, and 3.Attempts to refute that are bad arguments.

I would like to talk to you about refuting directly.

Refuting directly - is when you have a direct, straightforward argument to counter an argument.
Example:
Argument: It is useless and impossible for someone to learn any martial arts by sitting here, trying to catch flies with chopsticks.
Direct Refute of Argument: It is not useless or impossible for someone to learn martial arts by trying to catch flies with chopsticks. In fact, I have done it, and I have learned a form of martial arts that is important, patience.

There are a few fundamentals for direct refuting an argument. According to the book, these are:
1. Show that at least one of the premises is dubious.
2. Show that the argument isn't valid or strong.
3. Show that the conclusion is false.

Contradictory of a Claim - Chapter 6

According to the book, a contradictory claim is a claim that has an opposite type of "truth-value" or a negative/negation of a claim.

Examples of a claim:
John is eating
Thao will be going to the mall or she will go to the movies.
Mom will pick dad up from the airport, or he will take a taxi home.

Examples of contradictory of a claim:
John is not eating
Thao will not be going to the mall, and she will not be going to the movies.
Mom will not pick dad up from the airport, and he will not take a taxi home.

Basically a contradictory of a claim is the opposite of the original claim. It doesn’t matter of the original claim is a negative form or positive, it will turn to the opposite of it.

For example, if in my original claim, my first part of it is negative and my second part of the claim is positive; the contradictory of that claim is that my negative part of the claim will turn into a positive one, while my positive part of the claim will turn into a negative one.